Be Careful What You Wish For

I always wished that someday I would have children. In my twenties it became evident that I had some sort of blood disorder although no doctor could really tell me what the problem was exactly. All I knew was that about every four months I had to go in and have a blood panel drawn. This would result in the furrowed brow of the doctor, lots of page turning, some scribbling on the chart, a coupla questions--the usual. Sometimes they would tell me to be careful--changing a light bulb for me could be considered a contact sport. Other times, mm, not so much so.

At any rate, back to that whole wish thing. In my mid thirties I started thinking about what I would do if I reached my late thirties and prince charming still hadn't broached the horizon--would I attempt to do the whole baby thing by myself? I really didn't know. My opinion on the whole thing can best be metaphored by an oscillating fan--going back and forth, lots of whirring, blowing a lot of wind but achieving not much else except keeping the dust mites stirred.
Once, I asked my doctor what she thought. She looked at me straight in the face, assumed the furrowed brow visage and said that she thought I could conceive with help, but she didn't feel "confident" that I would carry a baby to term. I assumed a very Scarlett O'Hara attitude; I'll worry about that tomorrow.

Well, in my late thirties, God decided were he to leave me to my own devices much longer, I would screw everything up. It seemed like over night, ready or not, I had a man in my life. Things were progressing, but I was in no position to bring a baby into the picture. Let's face it, a 24 pack of pampers doesn't fit into the equation when you're budgeting $5.00 over three days to eat, feed the cat, and drive to work. None the less, I still wished for a baby someday.

Someday rolled around on May 20th, 2002. I was happy because now that Dan and I were married, I had his health insurance. I went to see my doctor for my usual blood analysis. Furrowed brow time..."We found something new in your blood this time". Used to the ever changing presence of this and that and whatever, I was more put out than worried, "Now what?" She looked at me and said "HCG". I blinked my response. I liked my doctor, she spoke blink very well. "It is a hormone found in pregnant women". Blink. She blinked back. "Well, why would I have that?" She just looked at me and laughed. Of course when she realized my face was turning puce and I wasn't breathing, she had the good grace to stop laughing and gently guide my head down between my knees. When I had finally stopped with the hyperventilation, she broke out this magic dial and spun it around a couple of times. "You're due Jan. 1st!"

After I left her office I went directly to the pharmacy. I purchased a pregnancy test and went home to take it. Positive. I went back to the store and bought a double pack of a name brand. Surely that cheap one had been faulty. Positive. Okay, maybe I didn't do it right. Let's try again. Positive. I called my friend Laurel. I said, "I understand that peeing on a stick isn't really complicated, but is there a way to mess this up?" "Umm, I'm afraid not, Chickie. You be knocked up." Okay, three home pregnancy tests and a blood test later, I still didn't believe it. When the test came back positive in the OB/GYN office, I accepted that it must be true.

Dan took the news rather well. Others that knew, seemed to be thrilled. Once the surprise--okay, that's like comparing a sperm whale to a guppy--an understatement of epic proportions, once the shock wore off, I settled into getting ready to be a mommy. I was already in my second trimester before I even found out I was pregnant. Because it wasn't certain I would carry to term, I was advised against making it common knowledge. It can be difficult to hide morning sickness, let me tell you. And by the way, as predicted, I didn't carry to term. The baby decided he would rather have turkey than champagne--he arrived prior to Thanksgiving.

But back to that wish thing, while I waited for baby to arrive, I was working during the day at a mortgage company, and nights at Williams Sonoma. Outside the store was a wishing well. Coming and going, I would pitch a dime into the well. I don't know how it came to be a dime, but that is what I settled on and that is what it was twice a day, every day I worked. I would wish the same wish every day. I had worked it out perfectly. It was short and crisp, and as best I could tell, covered all the bases. "Please let this baby be happy, healthy, and perfect in every way."

Well, he's six now. He's usually very happy and apart from ear infections as a baby, we've been blessed that he's healthy. Perfect in every way--perhaps God had a yen to prove he has a sense of humor.

Declan has an outrageous sense of humor, sometimes much to my chagrin. Fart humor tops the list of what kicks the giggles into high gear. He's social almost to a fault and once he's decided who he is going to talk to and what he's going to say, you can't deter him. Like when he told a man outside a store to go pick up his cigarette butt, the parking lot wasn't his ashtray. Some mothers say "Because I said so!" to things like why do I have to eat my spinach. I say it after the 22nd question about why raindrops fall down on the windshield, but roll up on the side windows of the car. He likes math and reading, lunch, sports and recess, but penmanship is another matter all together. For six he's keenly aware of what's happening in the world and he has his own opinions. He campaigned hard for "Iraq Obama" in the middle of a "repelican" stronghold. He's in a hurry to grow up. He's planning on moving into the "'Ssisted living" facility across the street when he's eleven. By then he'll only need help with the cooking and his laundry. He's joining the military and he's taken it upon himself to design Santa a suit that is more "appropriate" to taking packages to Iraq. Santa's new threads will have visor (to keep out the sand), be made of camo (to blend in better) with a down filling (it gets cold there at night), have a built in gps and strong ankle support on the boots (It's probably hard to walk in the sand).

Even though he puts me to the test everyday, and I have dreams at night about what questions and how many he'll ask tomorrow, and I'll probably be mainlining Malox by the time he gets to high school, I suppose in the end God gave me exactly what I wished for, and although it may not be like I thought it would be when I made that wish, he's perfect for me in every way.

Captain Daddy

I love to read. Generally the authors I like to read the most have off beat characters. If the characters in the book happen to remind me of family or friends, so much the better. One author that seemed to have an unusually keen knack for this was Erma Bombeck. In one of her books, I think it was If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What am I Doing in the Pits? she describes how her husband assumed an almost military persona before embarking on a family trip.....bingo!

My father didn't have the calmest of seas as he chartered his way through his childhood. At the age of five, without any prior reason or warning, my grandmother packed him up and took off with him. Leaving Oklahoma for California, she told him his father had died. (He didn't reunite with his father until his early thirties.) His mother remarried a man named Luther and had two sons. My father was often expected to not only work a man's share in the fields, but mind his younger brothers as well. There were drastic consequences for a mere whiff of transgression. By the age of 11, he had ridden a bus, a train and hitch-hiked from California, through Texas and back to Oklahoma. By the end of the 7th grade, his step-father decided he had all of the education he would need. It was no surprise that as soon as he was old enough, he enlisted in the army. Assigned to a MASH unit, he worked his way up to master Sargent.

Coming home on leave one autumn, he married my mother, someone he had known since he was 12 years old. They started a family and finally those choppy seas from his earlier years seemed to calm. That of course was short lived, eventually you see, those children he had fathered all started walking, talking, going to school and driving. It was time to re-enlist his military training.

My father wasn't a big man in stature, only 5'10", but he was a giant in character. In his youth he had a full head of dark wavy hair and true walnut eyes to match. He'd had sleeping sickness as a child which left his jaw paralyzed. It gave him a lop sided grin. It also made chewing difficult--chewing everything but the fat. My dad could talk (go figure, I know) if he took a notion to do so. It always amazed me the things he knew. I don't know why I should be surprised--my dad read anything he could get his hands on. For the most part he was pretty laid back, but there were certain things that made him snap to. You knew to mind your p's and q's when Captain Daddy was on patrol.

Captain Daddy was the master of un-spoken communication. A snap of the newspaper told you when you were too loud, a glance over the coffee cup indicated you had overstepped your bounds and you needed to back up. Captain Daddy had definite ideas about how long your skirt should be--it had to touch the tips of your index fingers while they hung at your sides. Make-up, not allowed until you were 14 and then only mascara and sheer lip gloss. You could wear shadow at 16, but you were to be "Made up, girl, not made over!" Table manners were highly regulated as was the way you talked. No slang, no contractions, absolutely no swearing, and you had better enunciate clearly.

If you were one of the girls, before you graduated high school, you had to attend finishing school. We learned how to answer the phone, all about fancy silverware, how to get out of the car, what season you were, how to count the points of jewelry you were wearing--all kinds of useful stuff! You were expected to use it too, and if you had any ideas about going out on a date, you had better tell the boy the remedials before he came to pick you up. Don't honk the horn, introduce yourself, say hello to my mother, state our plans and by all means know what the headlines were in the newspaper in case there is a pop quiz!

Before we went anywhere as a family, we were assembled for inspection. Most often this was either in front of the fireplace or the garage door. After make-up and hems, aftershave and fingernails had been reviewed, Captain Daddy would review our mission--we are going to Grandma's house for Christmas Eve, there will be no arguing or rough housing on the way, once we are there you will take care of your jackets, you will eat what is put on your plate for dinner, make sure you greet all of your elders and say thank you for your gift--even if it is the same soap on a rope you got last year.

After my high school graduation, I asked my dad why he was so adamant about all of these things. He said--"If you want to stay here, in Nowhere's Middle, an marry a man that grows things in the dirt and have a whole bunch of kids slamming the back screen door, that will set fine with me. But if you have bigger dreams, I don't ever want it said that where you came from kept you from where you want to go to."

Thanks, Captain Daddy.

The New One, the Blue One, the One I Wore Before

When I was 5 years old, my cousin Rubilee was getting married. This was a big deal to the family because Rubilee wasn't exactly leading a large parade of suitors. Family came in from all over for the wedding and everyone pitched in to make it a fantastic affair. The streamers, balloons, and paper bells had been hung and strung from every available surface. Bowls of jordan almonds, butter mints and mixed nuts were staged on all of the tables. The gift table was set up at a jaunty slant. The guest book, complete with feathered pen stood right at the entrance to the hall. The punch bowl had been polished and shone like a diamond; it was full, and there was a ready supply of sherbert and frozen fruit rings in case it looked like there might be a shortage. The only thing left to do was to get dressed.

I was decked out in my slip and ruffled socks. My hair ribbons, which of course were an exact match to my dress, had been pressed and hung with my dress. I lay across the bed, spying the crinolines that all too soon would become the bane of my existence. The only thing worse were the pin curls affixed all over my head. No mortal, prior or since, could make a pin curl tighter than my mother, and you didn't dare complain because she was equally brutal with a rat tail comb and could thump you with it before you could blink. Ah, but I digress...

I was distracted from my crinoline induced fugue by the ever expanding fog welling up in the room. The source of the fog was the scented talcum powder my Nana, her mother, and her sisters Ina, Ruth and Wilma all seemed to be applying at once. It reached a point it was so thick, you could surely have cut through it with a blunt edged butter knife. The knife, in the form of their high pitched, tinkling laughter, finally cut through.

My Nana, who described herself "as wide as she was tall", had a mass of dark curls and "gander" blue eyes. I loved that woman more than Mickey Mouse, Santa Claus and chocolate dipped pecans. For those of you that know me, that's enough said. For those of you that don't know me so well, suffice it to say--almost more than life itself. Nana said something curious that brought a new peal of laughter so loud, Niagra Falls would sound like a mere whisper.

Standing in her slip and stockings, knotted at the knee, she asked, "Should I wear the new one, the blue one, or the one I wore before?" I had no idea what that meant and thought that surely the heat and the talcum powder had overtaken them all.

At different times in my life I heard my Nana pose the same question. Sometimes laughter was the response and at other times tears, but always a very knowing look shone from behind the eyes that responded to the question. It was after my mother's funeral when I finally asked my Nana what that meant. She and her sister Ruth were sitting in the living room of her apartment at the retirement village. She took a long sip of her iced tea, then said, "They were all the same dress. It was what was happening that told you if you were wearing the new one, the blue one, or the one you wore before."

In my life, my life so far, I've had happy and exciting times. I've had sad and lonely times for sure. I've had humdrum, status quo times as well. 2008 was a year with equal parts of all three. Going forward in 2009, I will wear the new one, the blue one, and the one I wore before--I hope to wear them as Nana would have. I'll strive to appreciate each one.